What I meant was that being neutral and not attaching any specific definition to either one or the other is correct.
Jeesh, people are so Picky!!

You will not be punished FOR your 'emotions'; you will be punished BY your 'emotions'.

Pay attention, simplify, and (Meditation instruction in a nutshell) "Mind - the Gap." ‘Absit invidia verbo’ - may ill-will be absent from the word. And mindful of that, if I don't respond, this may be why....

to be honest, I'm surprised you're even talking to me.
I find most of my posts get ignored.
Must be because i don't quote reams and reams and reams and yards and miles of texts, references, suttas, quotations or teachings.

Just call me an old-fashioned ignoramus.

You will not be punished FOR your 'emotions'; you will be punished BY your 'emotions'.

Pay attention, simplify, and (Meditation instruction in a nutshell) "Mind - the Gap." ‘Absit invidia verbo’ - may ill-will be absent from the word. And mindful of that, if I don't respond, this may be why....

I should perhaps have said a bit more about MN 64. There is a set of ten questions which are called 'The undeclared questions' because the Buddha refuses to give answers to them. These are also sometimes presented as a set of ten views.

1. The world is eternal.
2. The world is not eternal.
3. The world is finite.
4. The world is infinite.
5. The soul is the same as the body.
6. The soul is one thing, and the body another.
7. After death a Tathagata exists.
8. After death a Tathagata does not exist.
9. After death a Tathagata both exists and does not exist.
10. After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist.

In MN 64 it is said of all ten that if there is [such a view] the holy life cannot be lived.

In my opinion, the views which are given as a pair, could also be given in the fourfold way, but this would make no difference. Of all of them it would still be said if there is such a view, the holy life cannot be lived.

I should perhaps have said a bit more about MN 64. There is a set of ten questions which are called 'The undeclared questions' because the Buddha refuses to give answers to them. These are also sometimes presented as a set of ten views.

1. The world is eternal.
2. The world is not eternal.
3. The world is finite.
4. The world is infinite.
5. The soul is the same as the body.
6. The soul is one thing, and the body another.
7. After death a Tathagata exists.
8. After death a Tathagata does not exist.
9. After death a Tathagata both exists and does not exist.
10. After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist.

In MN 64 it is said of all ten that if there is [such a view] the holy life cannot be lived.

In my opinion, the views which are given as a pair, could also be given in the fourfold way, but this would make no difference. Of all of them it would still be said if there is such a view, the holy life cannot be lived.

What do all these ten views have in common?

Regards, Vincent.

They all are speculations.
In regard to 7,8,9,10 (Nibbana) there are disagreement with scholars.

Buddha Said:
"And why are they undeclared by me? Because they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding. That's why they are undeclared by me.http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 61#p280051

I should perhaps have said a bit more about MN 64. There is a set of ten questions which are called 'The undeclared questions' because the Buddha refuses to give answers to them. These are also sometimes presented as a set of ten views.

1. The world is eternal.
2. The world is not eternal.
3. The world is finite.
4. The world is infinite.
5. The soul is the same as the body.
6. The soul is one thing, and the body another.
7. After death a Tathagata exists.
8. After death a Tathagata does not exist.
9. After death a Tathagata both exists and does not exist.
10. After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist.

In MN 64 it is said of all ten that if there is [such a view] the holy life cannot be lived.

In my opinion, the views which are given as a pair, could also be given in the fourfold way, but this would make no difference. Of all of them it would still be said if there is such a view, the holy life cannot be lived.

What do all these ten views have in common?

Regards, Vincent.

The common point is that they are useless conjectures born out of contact which promote suffering instead of it's end. They are mental 'medals' that one holds with pride & which might lead to argumentation with those who hold opposing views.

MN 63 wrote:
“Why have I left that undeclared? Because it is unbeneficial, it does not belong to the fundamentals of the holy life, it does not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbāna. That is why I have left it undeclared.

MN 74 wrote:Envisioning for himself clash, dispute, quarreling, annoyance, frustration, he both abandons that view and does not cling to another view. Thus there is the abandoning of these views; thus there is the relinquishing of these views.

DN 1 wrote:“When those recluses and brahmins who ... assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future—that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact—such a case is impossible.

Therein, bhikkhus, those recluses and brahmins who ... assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future—all these recluses and brahmins experience these feelings only by repeated contacts through the six bases of contact. With feeling as condition, there arises in them craving; with craving as condition, clinging arises; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; and with birth as condition, ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair arise.

When, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu understands as they really are the origin and passing away of the six bases of contact, their satisfaction, unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, then he understands what transcends all these views.

MN 22.81 also refers to some of these views as fabrications\conjectures (saṅkhāras) born out of ignorant contact.

Other useful references have already been mentioned by other members so I think this should suffice to answer your question.

Note that 'world' could also be translated as 'cosmos', and means all
thirty-one planes which make up the three realms.

What do all these ten views have in commom?

Consider someone (at that time) who has the fixed view 'the cosmos is eternal.'
How does he know this? He does not really know it, but he is convinced that he does know it. He has posited something as being true, and he sees it as true, but he does not see that he has made this truth for himself.

He has lost touch with reality, he is deluded, he will go on to become even more deluded. The same can be said of those who hold any of these ten views.

The same can be said of those who hold any of the sixty-two views described in the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1).

It is said of arahants that they know and see things as they really are, and that they have eliminated delusion. Noble disciples on the noble eightfold path are developing the ability to know and see things as they really are, and are eliminating delusions.

Many views are eliminated at the first stage of the path, with the fruit of stream-entry. These views can also be called delusions.

Now, why would the Buddha say that if there is the view 'the cosmos is eternal' there is no living the holy life? Because one who holds such a view is deluded. Because all such delusions have to be removed. Because their removal is the entry into the noble eightfold path.

Something happens with the fruit of stream-entry. The views which one held before cease, but all other such views also become impossible. They cannot now arise in the future.

This must be because to understand, and free oneself, from one of these views (delusions), is to free oneself from all views of this type.

Also, there seems to be a root view which all the other views arise from and depend on. This is called sakkaya-ditthi. No one seems to know what it is.

Clearly, this must involve understanding the psychological mechanism behind the origination of such delusions.

This represents quite an achievement, since very few people are free of such groundless beliefs.

And the path itself consists of the observation, analysis, and de-construction of deeper psychological mechanisms. This requires direct knowing and seeing of what arises from moment to moment. The distant past and the far future are completely irrelevant.

"As to the various views which arise in the world, householder, 'the world is eternal', ...... 'the Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death,' - these as well as the sixty-two speculative views mentioned in the Brahmajala: when there is identity view, these views come to be; when there is no identity view, these views do not come to be." [BB, TCDB, part of SN 41.3 - Isidatta (2)]

[url=http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/14.1-Anta-S-s22.103-piya.pdf]SN 22.103 Notes[/url] by Piya Tan wrote:
The unawakened ordinary person, unlike the disciple, tends to see the aggregates in four wrong ways, and is obsessed by his wrong view—this is formulated in the attānudiṭṭhi formula, thus:
he regards form, feeling, perception, formations, or consciousness, as self;
or, he regards self as possessing form, etc,
or, he regards form, etc, as in self,
or, he regards “I am form; form is mine,” etc. (M 3:188, 227; S 3:3, 16, 96; conflated)
When listed in full, this formula gives twenty wrong views by which the unawakened worldling falls short of the saint’s vision.
In both the Suttas and the Abhidhamma, these twenty wrong views regarding the aggregates are used to define the nature of self-view

MN 44: Cūḷavedalla Sutta wrote:
"'Self-identification, self-identification,' it is said, lady. Which self-identification is described by the Blessed One?"

"There are these five clinging-aggregates, friend Visakha: form as a clinging-aggregate, feeling as a clinging-aggregate, perception as a clinging-aggregate, fabrications as a clinging-aggregate, consciousness as a clinging-aggregate. These five clinging-aggregates are the self-identification described by the Blessed One."
...
"But, lady, how does self-identification come about?"

"There is the case, friend Visakha, where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person — who has no regard for noble ones, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma; who has no regard for men of integrity, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma — assumes form (the body) to be the self, or the self as possessing form, or form as in the self, or the self as in form.
"He assumes feeling to be the self...
"He assumes perception to be the self...
"He assumes (mental) fabrications to be the self...
"He assumes consciousness to be the self, or the self as possessing consciousness, or consciousness as in the self, or the self as in consciousness. This is how self-identification comes about."

It might also be helpful to consider a description self-identity views being overcome but conceit not yet being overcome:

SN 22.89: Khemaka Sutta wrote:
Friends, it's not that I say 'I am form,' nor do I say 'I am something other than form.' It's not that I say, 'I am feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness,' nor do I say, 'I am something other than consciousness.' With regard to these five clinging-aggregates, 'I am' has not been overcome, although I don't assume that 'I am this.'

"Potthapada, all those wanderers are blind and sightless, you alone among them are sighted. Some things I have taught and pointed out, Potthapada, as being certain, others as being uncertain. Which are the things I have pointed out as uncertain? "The world is eternal" I have declared to be uncertain ... "the Tathagata exists after death ...." Why? Because they are not conducive .... to nibbana. That is why I have declared them to be uncertain."

[Thus Have I Heard, M.Walshe, 1987. part of DN 9.33]

My interpretation of this passage is that it has been edited. The Buddha originally said simply that these things are uncertain, in the sense of unknowable. later editing has tried to cover this up.

Why? Because when, in the popular imagination, the Buddha became a superhuman god-like figure, it was an embarrassment for him to say that there was anything that he did not know.

But recognising that there are things that we cannot know is an esential part of the training. That is why the noble disciple does not assert 'the world is eternal' and so forth.